Day: 28 September 2020

This week’s mega competition is something completely different, courtesy of British innovators absoluteBLACK. They’re giving away 10 bottles of GRAHENlube to lucky road.cc readers, with each 114ml bottle up for grabs worth £114.99!

Is a £114 chain lube really worth it?

Of course the chain lube used by this year’s Tour de France winner is going to be valuable stuff… and at £1per ml or gram (Iranian Beluga Caviar is £2 per gram, for comparison) we’re talking about a seriously precious lube here! And just like caviar, GRAPHENlube is only available in limited quantities, so now is your chance to get some and try it for yourself.

absoluteBLACK have a lot of information about it on their website which you can read here, but below you can find out a few things about what makes it so special.

Here’s what absoluteBLACK have to say: 

“GRAPHENlube – World’s first hydrocarbon-based (wax) chain lubricant containing Graphene. It exhibits extraordinary durability at single application whilst maintaining impressively low friction for a prolonged period of time in both wet and dry conditions. It’s everything you can really wish for in lubrication. Up to 1800km on single application (dry conditions), 3-10W savings over other lubes. Perfect for Road, Triathlon, Gravel, Mtb and E-bike.”

Here are the claimed advantages according to absoluteBLACK :

• Able to hold sub 5 Watts of frictional loss over 900km on a Single application (in dry, low dust road conditions. After immersive lubing)
• It gives you “free” power regardless the conditions
• Extends life of your drivetrain, hence saving on replacement costs
• Repels water and does not attract dirt
• Dry, paste-like coating that can stay on the chain over 1800km (in dry, low dust road conditions. After immersive lubing)
• Unique black look of the lubricant when dry
• Safe: does not contain any harmful solvents

They also add: “In simple terms, it’s a wax-based water emulsion, with a special mix of high purity graphene that is liquid when you apply it. This becomes almost solid when it dries on the chain. Wax-based lubricants exhibit far greater tolerance to water and dirt contamination, successfully separating moving chain parts from abrasion and filling in all the imperfections on friction surfaces.”

absoluteBLACK provide a much deeper explanation with relevant graphs over on their site; but here at road.cc we don’t have a laboratory and we’re not scientists, so we gave it to Dave to test with a smart trainer hooked up to various power meters. If you haven’t seen the video you can watch it here… but suffice to say, GRAPHENlube definitely impressed him!

It’s not just Dave either; if you watched this year’s thrilling edition of the Tour de France, you’ll be well aware that the young man above is Tadej Pogacar, who romped to a shock victory after ‘that’ incredible time trial performance on stage 20. Pogacar and all of his UAE Team Emirates teammates were using GRAPHENlube throughout Le Tour, and also the entire Jumbo Visma team were using it too! That’s a pretty amazing set of results for such a young product.

So, if you want to ride like Tadej or Primoz, then all you need to do is enter the competition below… and ride your bike, a lot. Best of luck!

Can’t see the entry form? Click here!